The Swedish economy expanded at a far superior rate than many of its European counterparts over the first three months of the year, data published Friday showed, following the government's decision not to impose a full lockdown to contain the spread of the coronavirus.

The Nordic country's statistics office reported gross domestic product (GDP), the broadest measure of economic health, grew at an annual rate of 0.4% in the first quarter.

Sweden's GDP increased by 0.1% in the first quarter, when seasonally adjusted and compared to the final three months of 2019. The median forecasters in a Reuters poll of economists had expected to see a 0.6% contraction on a quarterly basis.

UFC light heavyweight champion Jon Jones took the law into his own hands as he tackled vandals in downtown Albuquerque, New Mexico, amid continued unrest across the US following the death of George Floyd.

In a video shared with his 5 million Instagram followers, Jones confronted a pair of masked youths who were carrying spray cans during protests on Sunday night.

"Give me the spray can," the fighter can be heard yelling as he follows one youth into the road.

A professor at the University of Alabama Birmingham used Twitter to tell protesters how to successfully pull down monuments, as rioters vandalized the Lincoln Memorial, the World War II Memorial and other iconic sites in the nation's capital over the weekend.

Sarah Parcak, an Egyptologist who specializes in ancient architecture, says she is an expert on obelisks, the shape of the Washington Monument. She noted obelisks "might be masquerading as a racist monument."

The District of Columbia was set ablaze, and stores were looted and destroyed, after a series of protests turned destructive following the death of George Floyd, a black man who was killed last week by a white Minneapolis police officer. The officer, who knelt on Mr. Floyd's neck for 9 minutes, has been charged with murder, but protesters are demanding more in response for the killing.

YouTube continues to suppress any content that goes against their chosen narrative.

In case you were wondering, yes, YouTube is still enforcing its almost unprecedented censorship around what's allowed to be said regarding the coronavirus pandemic.

But this censorship seems to be elastic in how and to whom it is applied. While many videos got summarily removed, even those giving voice to respectable scientists and doctors, others, like an interview with British journalist Peter Hitchens, have "merely" been hidden.

A study conducted at a hospital in Milan found that the number of viruses present in people who tested positive has decreased.

COVID-19 is losing its potency and no longer clinically exists in Italy, a senior Italian doctor has claimed.

Dr Alberto Zangrillo, the head of Milan's San Raffaele Hospital in the hard-hit Lombardy region, said the new coronavirus has become much less lethal, with newly infected patients having weaker symptoms than a couple of months ago.

Over 50 percent of Americans would like to see the army deployed to the streets of US cities to help police tackle the riots raging across the country following the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police.

The US has been gripped by a massive wave of protests for over a week, as hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets to call for justice for the African American man, who was choked to death by a police officer during a detention process.

While it might seem that the nation, or the larger part of it at least, has rallied behind the cause, a large number of Americans admitted they would not object to the military being deployed to aid the police in dealing with the protest actions that have spiraled into riots and violent clashes with law enforcement in many cities.

A poll conducted between May 31 and June 1 by Morning Consult data intelligence company showed that as many as 58 percent of Americans approve of the idea. One third of the respondents "strongly support" it while only a total of 30 percent oppose, to some extent, deploying the troops. The survey relies on a "national sample of 1,624 registered voters" interviewed online.

Inspired by the US demonstrations, 20,000 people defied a ban to rally in the streets of the French capital

Clashes broke out between police and protesters in Paris on Tuesday after around 20,000 people defied a ban to rally over the 2016 death of a black man in police custody, galvanised by US demonstrations against racism and deadly police violence.

The protesters used slogans from the American protest movement to call for justice for Adama Traore, whose death four years ago has been a rallying cause against police brutality in France.

The demonstration, which came after the release of two differing medical reports into the cause of Traore's death, had been prohibited by police citing a coronavirus ban on gatherings of more than 10 people.

Comment: More on the death of Adama Traore from 2016, and the resulting riots:

Employees at Facebook are annoyed at CEO Mark Zuckerberg's refusal to act against President Donald Trump, sharing their dissatisfaction with his decision online for all to see.

Grumblings amongst the employees were heard at all levels of the company, with the main criticism being aimed at Facebook's decision to leave Trump's post allegedly "glorifying violence" untouched, even as Twitter hid the same text behind a warning.

In his May 29 Twitter thread, Trump first decried what he called "a total lack of leadership" in Minneapolis, before proceeding to unload on "THUGS" that were "dishonoring the memory of George Floyd." The part that Twitter took issue with read "when the looting starts, the shooting starts" and was interpreted as a threat to looters and rioters.

The tweet remains accessible "in the public's interest," but only after a user clicks on a warning message covering it.

Comment: It isn't only piles of conveniently placed bricks that are being found around cities where protests and rioting are possible...

Violence has erupted in major cities all over America yet again today, and we are being told to brace ourselves for more rioting, looting and civil unrest in the days ahead. The death of George Floyd was a great tragedy, and the vast majority of Americans agree that we do not want to see that sort of police brutality in our nation, and so this should actually be a moment that brings our country together. But instead, America is being torn apart. The protests against police brutality have been hijacked by sinister forces, and they are attempting to channel the outrage over George Floyd's death in a very violent direction. As you will see below, law enforcement authorities all over the U.S. are telling us that they have identified a highly organized effort to orchestrate violence, and this appears to be happening on a nationwide basis.